120 BEHAVIOR OF PIGEONS. 



at 7 weeks old, given the squawk or cluck, although daily under provocation at feeding 

 and roosting. At the age of 8 weeks I heard it give the danger-note or cluck, but it was 

 not the finished note. 



A male passenger (7 A), 2 years and 7 months old, is in a large pen with a female Ecto- 

 pistes. This male has just been separated for two days from a white ring-dove. 1 He does 

 not court the female of his species, but sits at a corner of his pen, where he can see some 

 ring-doves in cages about 10 feet away, and calls to them. He sets his feathers in best 

 order, and puts on a most charming expression as he eyes them. His "call" consists of 

 two very distinct parts: (1) Aloud, shrill, piercing squawk, 2 in uttering which the bird 

 draws back its head and as its beak opens expels all its breath in one effort. Just as the cry 

 is made the wings are flirted upward and forward. The whole performance is precisely 

 the same as the threatening-note. The movements of the wings in this case are a means 

 of attracting attention; while in the threatening mood it appears to be a threat to strike 

 or to fly at the intruder. This loud cry, with wing-flirting, is adopted in calling a bird at 

 some distance, and it is usually followed after a few seconds with a second note. (2) This 

 second part is a single guttural sound, or a sort of awkward "coo," in the making of which 

 the bird raises its head, lengthens its neck, and swells the upper part of it, as if the air were 

 forced into this part without being allowed to escape. Until this morning I never quite 

 caught the manner of the calling. Everything to-day was favorable to seeing and under- 

 standing the sequence. 



The "behavior in uniting" in the passenger-pigeon is as follows: The female, if disposed, 

 often takes the initiative, giving the call and then hugging the male while she presses with 

 her body against him. He returns the call and the hugging and the billing. He reaches 

 over, so that the front of his neck bears on the back of her neck or the top of her head, and 

 often jerks or pulls her head towards him by means of his beak, which is held like a hook 

 over her head. He may often mount several times before the female is ready. When 

 she is ready she stoops and raises both wings to support him. Sometimes she begins to 

 stoop only after he has mounted, gradually and slowly lowering her body to a horizontal 

 position. The male expects her to raise her tail to contact with his; if she does not at once 

 do this he touches her head with his beak, with a single stroke first on one side then on the 

 other, or touches her beak near the base, as if to make her lower her head and raise her tail. 

 It is more probable, however, that he does this to excite her to the point of responding 

 to his movements. The pressure of the body and neck against the female is to induce her 

 to active participation in the act. The pull with the beak hooked over the head and the 

 side stroke of the beak, as well as the fondling of the head feathers, all tend to excitement, 

 and they are the expression of the sexual impulse. 



I have never seen the female put her beak within that of the male, an act so common to 

 other pigeons. The male crested pigeon, as well as the passenger, has often been seen to peck 

 gently the head of the female after mounting, to induce her to raise the tail and lower the head. 



A male Ectopistes, when standing at a distance of a foot or two from the female, will 

 often emit a loud squawk and rush towards her, and hug her with surprising vigor. When 

 he practices this on another species to whom it is unfamiliar he frightens the bird he would 

 court. I have had a female Ectopistes mated with a satinette (C. domestica var.) all winter 

 and spring. She had often offered herself in the usual way for her species, but the satinette 

 took the passenger's action to be an attack, and though he usually retreated, he sometimes 

 seized her and shook her. It does not seem as if they would ever understand each other. 

 He is always too gallant to press against her. (R 25.) 



1 Since a fledgling he had spent various periods with ring-doves. EDITOR. 



2 This "squawk" is what I have named the "keck." (See Craig, \V., 1911. The Expressions of Emotion in the 

 Pigeons. III. The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius Linn.) The Auk, vol. 28, 1900, 408-427J. (W. C.) 



